The Lithuanian struggle for statehood in the fifteenth century in bourgeois and feudal historiography is treated as part of the problem of the Lithuanian Polish union. The merger of two states was a significant event not only in the life of those two states but was important for the whole of Eastern Europe. Because of this, this union has been to a greater or lesser degree studied by the feudal and bourgeois historians of various nations (Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Germans, and others) who, however, lacked a strong methodology and usually wrote from the standpoint of their class and nation.

The union has been treated most frequently by Poles. Of the more noteworthy Polish historians, just about everyone has studied it. We must first consider the noted fifteenth century Polish chronicler, Jan Dlugosz (1415 -1480). His most important work is the History of Poland, written in Latin.1 This is a most noteworthy historical work of the fifteenth century. It supplies a great deal of valuable materials. The concepts which he created and the explanations of historical events which he offered were repeated by later Polish chroniclers. While this work is in many places very tendentious, alongside the documentary materials which have survived, it is one of the major sources for the study of our question.

Dlugosz was canon of Cracow, secretary and close collaborator of the influential politician, Zbigniew
Olesnicki, bishop of Cracow, tutor of the children of king Casimir, and a diplomat. Questions concerning Lithuania and especially Lithuanian Polish relations are treated very tendentiously by Dlugosz. He tended to minimize Lithuania's significance and role, boldly colored the facts in his own way, and remained silent about many things which he knew. The interests of the Catholic Church he ranked above the secular, those of Poland, above the Lithuanian. Expressing the interests of feudal Poland, her aim to expand into Lithuanian and Russian lands, Dlugosz, like all Polish nobles, lauded to the skies their great achievement, the introduction of Christianity into Lithuania. The
christianization of Lithuania was a political device for annexing her. Poles proclaimed their moral and political superiority, claimed the right to lead Lithuania, and by means of this, raise themselves in the esteem of feudal and Catholic Western Europe. Thus, it
was necessary to show that Lithuania had been primitive, drowning in paganism and darkness, that only Poland saved Lithuania from complete collapse. Dlugosz asserted that Poland alone saved Lithuania from the crossbearers, that the victory of Tannenberg was only a Polish deed. Poland was alleged to be the true fortress and stronghold of Christianity in Eastern Europe, against the pagans and the schismatics  the Orthodox.

Where the interests of Poland and Lithuania came into conflict, invariably we find Dlugosz defending the Polish side. He described certain events not as they took place but as the Polish nobles wanted them to take place. He presented the Polish intent to annex Lithuania as an accomplished fact, beginning with the events at Krewo. The acts of 1385 -1413 were interpreted by Dlugosz as the incorporation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into the Kingdom of Poland; the Lithuanian struggle for autonomy, as simply a revolt and a violation of Polish rights. However, Dlugosz regarded Jagiello and his dynasty with disfavor. He was fascinated by the personality of Vytautas, emphasized his talents and insisted that Vytautas serve Poland. He looked with disfavor upon Vytautas' desire to wear the royal crown. He depicted unfavorably Švitrigaila, defender of Lithuanian autonomy, and in general, all Lithuanian demands for an autonomous state. Also tendentious is the information Dlugosz gives about Lithuanian Polish conferences and quarrels over their relations with each other which arose during the reign of
Casimir.

Polish feudal and bourgeois historians, who valued the union very highly and considered it the most important event in Polish history, a symbol of her power and glory, used Dlugosz'es chronicle. In Poland, the rule of the kings of the Jagiellonian dynasty of Lithuanian origin is depicted with a halo, for they successfully defended Poland against the Germans and annexed many lands in the east. The union was to justify the expansion of the Polish feudalists into Lithuanian, Russian,
Byelorussian, and Ukrainian lands, to establish Polish "rights" to those so-called border areas. Expansion to the east was
camouflaged by the slogan of Poland's "civilizing mission." Polish feudal and bourgeois historians asserted that the "border lands" were on a very low social and cultural plane. The union allegedly saved the Lithuanians from internal chaos, saved them from the cross bearers, kept them from melting away in a "Russian world"; by virtue of the union, Lithuanians received from Poland a western and superior Christianity, and social and political
institutions. Such ideas can be found in the old feudal historiography during the Rzeczpospolita, they were alive during the years of Czarist oppression and widely disseminated in bourgeois Poland between the world wars, when the bourgeois government of Poland had seized many non-Polish lands in the east (Eastern Lithuania or the Vilnius region, Western Byelorussia, and Western Ukraine).

Usually, Polish historians treated Lithuanian history as a part of Polish history. They did not omit the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from their collections of documents, nor from their monographs and other works about Poland. They held that Lithuanian history began with the Lithuanian Polish Union. They tried to ignore or minimize the efforts of the Lithuanian feudalists to retain their sovereignty after the union of 1385, their resistance to the efforts of the Polish nobles to liquidate Lithuanian statehood. Polish historians treated such efforts negatively, and deemed them simply Lithuanian "separatism." The union was studied with a great deal of emphasis on the role of personalities and ideas as the decisive factor, independent of the economic and social development of both countries.

However, in spite of all the viewpoints typical of their class, Polish bourgeois historians have contributed much to the study of Lithuanian history. They collected and shaped vast quantities of historical sources and established certain facts upon reliable evidence. All this can be used in future investigations.

The older historiography of the nineteenth century (J. Lelewel, K. Szajnocha, J. Szujski, M. Bobrzynski) interpreted Polish Lithuanian ties in 1385 -1386 as rather loose ones, a union of two states. The historians of that
time regarded Lithuanian history as a part of Polish history, as a common Lithuanian - Polish treasury from which one should draw strength during the Czarist oppression.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, while the Lithuanian nationalistic movement was in progress, a new conception of the union arose. It came to be regarded as the annexation of Lithuania by Poland. Polish historians undertook to analyze the acts of union from a legal point of view. The first to analyze the acts of union more extensively was S. Kutrzeba in his work "Poland's Union with Lithuania."
2 The work was published in a collection of papers titled The Historical Relations Between Lithuania and Poland (1914), which appeared to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Union of Horodlo, in which certain questions of Lithuanian history and culture are analyzed. The author distinguished periods of incorporation, personal union, and real union. At about the same time, the acts of union were analyzed by another specialist in law and government, O. Balzer.3

After many sources had been collected, the effort to draw generalizations about Polish Lithuanian relations was made. The first work about these relations in the time of the Gediminas-Jagiello dynasty was O. Halecki's The History of the Union of Jagiello.4It was written to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the Union of Lublin. In analyzing the political Lithuanian Polish relations from the Union of Krewo to the Union of Lublin, he used many historical sources. Because of the quantity of factual
information and of archival materials published there, the work is valuable even today. However, its main conception is very tendentious. For Halecki, the Lithuanian -Polish union is a phenomenon of unusual historical importance, a creative idea, Poland's historical mission. The main task of this union was to unify Polish, Lithuanian, and Russian lands into a single political organism. The union was a praiseworthy solution of problems in the relations between nations and states, offered by Poles, which satisfied all the proper requirements of the unified lands and led to the creation of the empire of the Jagiellonians. The greatest achievement of the
Jagellonian state was the extension of western civilization in the east.5

Some years later, in 1930, a general interpretation of the union era was also offered by L. Kolankowski in his work The History of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Jagiellonian
Period.6The book is restricted to political history and is very tendentious. The author attempted to provide a historical basis for the nationalistic and imperialistic tendencies in bourgeois Poland which expressed themselves in the annexation of many non-Polish territories after the first world war. Kolankowski too treats the union as an instrument which saved Lithuania from two dangers: the influence of Russian culture and of orthodoxy, on the one hand, and the aggression of the cross bearers, on the other. The union, he alleged, safeguarded the ethnic foundations of Lithuania  he passes over in silence the polonization which followed the union  unified her internally, and raised her to a higher level by placing her in the sphere of Western culture.
Kolankowski lauds Jagiello and considers him to be the inspirer and initiator of all the more important events in Lithuania, while Vytautas is cast in the role of a willing executor of Jagiello's plans and his collaborator. The author very much emphasized the importance of dynasties in politics, in the development of Polish Lithuanian relations. In contrast to the federative ideas of
Halecki, Kolankowski asserted that the basic aim and political program of Jagiello and his dynasty was to create a large and unified Lithuanian - Polish state, as their own hereditary property.

H. Lowmianski's monograph on the social and economic foundations of the union is also written in accordance with the principles of bourgeois methodology.7 The author, a known student of Lithuanian history, asserted that when eastern conquests ceased in the seventh decade of the fourteenth century and the income of the nobles from wars decreased considerably, social and economic difficulties arose, and the Lithuanian nobles were transformed into landowners, rulers of large estates, while the military Lithuanian state changed into a class state. The union with Poland was formed with the active participation of the nobles and in their interest.

Polish historians especially liked the period when Jagiello and Vytautas were in power and in their writings attributed the decisive role to the acts of rulers. Here we will not mention all the authors, especially the older ones (K. Stadnicki, J. Wolff, and others). The most productive Polish historian in the study of Lithuanian Polish relations was A. Prochaska. His most important works are monographs about Jagiello8 and
Vytautas.9 Prochaska knows the sources well. He published a codex of the letters of Vytautas. His works are full of factual information, but he is not systematic and his thoughts are not clear. Characteristic of him are nationalistic and clerical tendencies, justifying the expansion eastwards of Polish feudalists. Prochaska idealizes the Lithuanian - Polish union and considers it the great political, cultural, and religious mission of Poland in Lithuania and the whole of Eastern Europe. To make it appear that the Polish feudalists accomplished a great deal in Lithuania, Prochaska in very dark colors depicted the economic, political, and cultural condition of Lithuania before 1387, that is, before the baptism of Lithuania, while Lithuanians themselves are shown as uncultured barbarians. He did not at all consider how these barbarians could have fought successfully against the German order and the feudalists of many countries who supported it.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, A. Lewicki's well-documented monograph, The Revolt of Švitrigaila, appeared.10 In the beginning of the work, the author surveys Lithuanian Polish relations and gives a more extensive treatment of the last years of Vytautas' rule (1429-1430). He then moves on to the period of Švitrigaila's rule and his later struggles for the throne. Lewicki earlier and more clearly than others stated the aim of the Polish feudalists, to annex Lithuania. He asserted that in 1385 -1386 there was no union, but Lithuania was simply incorporated into the Polish state. Lewicki, like Prochaska, lauds the union and Jagiello. The author shows no favor to Švitrigaila, an opponent of union with Poland and defender of Lithuanian autonomy, and considers him a great supporter of orthodoxy and of Russians in general. Besides this monograph, Lewicki has written also about the attempt of Žygimantas Kęstutaitis to form with foreign rulers a union against Poland.11 F. Koneczny, who wrote at about the same time as Lewicki, was among
the first to interpret the act of Krewo as the incorporation of Lithuania into Poland.12

S. Smolka interprets Lithuanian Polish relations more objectively.13 He admits that Vytautas defended the sovereignty of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania against the attempts of the Polish magnates to turn Lithuania into a province of Poland and tried to achieve a complete equality between Lithuania and Poland. This is why he sought the royal crown. Because he wanted to resist Poland, Vytautas maintained friendly diplomatic relations with other western states, for example, with the Hussite Czechs, with the emperor Sigismund. However, Smolka considers the union to have been a great favor to Lithuania on the part of Poland, because it shut off the way to the east for the order and pulled Lithuania out of the jaws of the stagnant, Orthodox, Russian world.

Before the second world war, J. Adamus posed the problem of the legal and governmental relations between Lithuania and Poland.14 He objected to the opinion entrenched in Polish historiography (held by S. Kutrzeba, O. Balzer, O. Halecki, L. Kolankowski) about the incorporation of Lithuania into Poland in 1385 - 1401. Trying to show that the Lithuanian state was independent at the time, Adamus cited the example that in 1386 - 1398, while Poland was at peace with the order, Lithuanians separately fought with the cross bearers. Other historians (H.Paszkiewicz, H. Lowmianski)15 did not accept Adamus' arguments and a debate on this issue ensued.

The middle of the fifteenth century and its second half, beginning with the start of Casimir's rule (1440), have been much less studied by Polish historians. This period was treated by O. Halecki and L. Kolankowski, both of whom have already been mentioned, in works of greater scope, but there are few separate works, especially those dealing with the first decades of the reign of Casimir. F. Papee has shown the most interest in the second half of the fifteenth century. He has published a collection of papers on various questions of Polish Lithuanian relations during this
period.16 The same author has written a separate work about Alexander, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland.17 Papee depicts Lithuania as a thinly inhabited and impoverished country. His works are characterized by the desire to identify the views of the Lithuanian government with those of the Polish, to show that the union was not broken off with the election of Alexander as the Grand Duke of Lithuania.

Several other works by Polish historians about this period of Lithuanian history are worth mentioning. F. Finkel's about the election of Sigismund the Elder,18 L. Kolankowski's about the beginning of the rule in Lithuania of Sigismund Augustus,19 the last of the Gediminas -Jagiello dynasty, O. Halecki's and S. Kutrzeba's about the genesis and formation of the Union of
Lublin.

An important contribution to the study of Lithuanian history has been made by Russian and Ukrainian historians. Russian historians, in studying the history of their country, more than once have dealt with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which included many Russian,
Byelorussian, and Ukrainian lands, and were interested in the policies and dealings of her rulers with Poland. Russian historical studies up to the revolution made very heavy use of archives and on some subjects in Lithuanian history, especially in the investigation of internal conditions in Lithuania, of economic and social problems, surpassed Polish historiography. If Polish historians tried to show the necessity of the Lithuanian - Polish union in any way they could, Russian historians treated this fact more objectively, recognizing that the union broke off the normal social and political development in Lithuania, the historical community between Lithuanian and Russian lands. Russian historians were especially interested in the condition and historical development of Russian, Byelorussian, and Ukrainian lands within the structure of the Lithuanian state or, as they frequently called it, Lithuania - Russia. However some, led by Great Russian tendencies and simply serving the Czarist policy of
Russification, frequently overrated the role of Russian lands in the formation and development of the Lithuanian state.

Up to the end of the nineteenth century, Russian historiography (N. Karamzin, S. Solovev, V. Kliuchevsky) paid comparatively slight attention to Lithuania. But as the study of history advanced, towards the end of the nineteenth century the special scholarly investigation of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania began. The initiative was taken by two historians of the University of Kiev, V. Antonovich20 and N. Dashkevich.21 In contrast to that of Polish historians, their works point out the
negative influence of Polish culture and her social and legal structure on the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the nations composing it. They assert that after the union, the Lithuanian state began to lose its sovereignty.

The most famous representative of Ukrainian bourgeois historiography was M. Hrushevsky. In his work The History of Ukraine - Russia, volume IV of which deals with the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries,22 he analyzed not only Ukrainian history but also the relations between the Ukraine, and Lithuania  Poland. The work presented many materials to elucidate the relations between Lithuania and the Ukraine (the lands of Galicia -Volhynia). Hrushevsky, following the standpoint of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism, claimed that Kievan Russia was only a Ukrainian state, without regard for the fact that it was the common cradle of Russian, Ukrainian, and Byelorussian cultures. According to him, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the political and cultural heir of old Russia in the same way as was the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The Lithuanian state formed itself not through conquest, but by annexing the old Russian lands. Hrushevsky was the first to oppose the view entrenched in Polish historiography that in 1385 -1386 Lithuania was incorporated into Poland. According to him, this was only the aim of the Polish magnates, imposed by the acts upon the Lithuanian - Russian state, and which initially was not fully understood, but when Poland began to carry out her plans, resistance arose and the scheme of the Polish magnates was thwarted.

M. Chubaty, another Ukrainian historian, in his work about the governmental and legal condition of Ukrainian lands within the Lithuanian state towards the end of the fourteenth century,23 asserted that while
trying to centralize his state, by means of the acts of Krewo, Jagiello, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, sought to insure Polish support. Chubaty, like Hrushevsky, wrote that the acts of Krewo did not incorporate Lithuania into Poland, but only established the permanent union of two states. The Ukrainian historian B. Barwinski, who wrote about Žygimantas Kęstutaitis,24 is well informed about the sources for the study of this question. He depicts Žygimantas' efforts to rid himself of Polish ties.

Lithuanian history has been studied also by a number of Russian historians. A. Barbashev published in St. Petersburg a two volume work about Vytautas and his policies.25 He notes the efforts of Polish historians to deny the important role which the Russian nation played in Lithuanian history. According to him, Jagiello's policy of uniting the two states into one was short-sighted. Barbashev defends Vytautas' efforts to rid Lithuania of the Polish yoke. After the victory at Tannenberg in 1410, Vytautas planned to become an entirely independent ruler, but he did not wish to destroy the order completely, lest a strengthened Poland gain enough courage and power to subjugate Lithuania entirely.

Of Russian historians, Lithuania's part has been most studied by M. Liubavsky, professor at the University of Moscow; he studied Lithuanian history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Liubavsky was the first to systematically and consequentially use the rich archival materials from the archives of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Annals. His works, because of the wealth of factual information, have not lost their value even now. Liubavsky published two major monographs: The Administrative Division Into Regions and Local Government in the Lithuanian - Russian State up to the
Publication of the First Lithuanian Statute,26and the Lithuanian - Russian
Seimas.27The latter of the two works is rich in materials for our subject. There, the development of the
Seimas of the Lithuanian state and of the council of magnates is connected with Lithuania's relation with Poland, that is, with the question of union. Besides these two works, Liubavsky has also published Historical Outlines of the Lithuanian - Russian State up to and Including the Union of
Lublin.28 This work contains lectures given at the Moscow university and is a summary of all of his scholarly investigations.

Since he was a partisan of the historical-juridical school, Liubavsky investigated the historical process as the evolution of a governmental structure and juridical norms. According to him, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was, in a certain sense, the direct continuation of Kievan Russia, its further development. The unification of western Russian lands which centered around Lithuania was in essence the restoration of the destroyed political unity of the Kievan state, but due to historical circumstances, its center was now by the Neris and not the Dnieper. Union with Poland was caused by the weakening of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The duchy was a combination of various lands and princedoms, held together only by the rule of the grand duke. The governmental crisis which centered around the issue as to who would be grand duke at the end of the fourteenth century would have ended in the dissolution of the state. Jagiello undertook to find a solution, and with the act of Krewo of 1385, Lithuania was incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland. The Lithuanian boyars soon saw that the union did not bring the promised "brotherly union" with the Poles, but only political degradation and enslavement. They saw also that their economic interests suffered. A revolt ensued, led by Vytautas. Lithuania and Poland
did not merge completely, as was envisaged in the treaty of 1385. During the reign of
Vytautas and later on, the Lithuanian boyars wanted complete independence; they defended the autonomy of their state.

The lectures of the historian A. Presniakov on western Russia and the Lithuanian - Russian state, delivered at St. Petersburg university in 1908 - 1910, were published after his death.29
Presniakov, like Liubavsky, denied that feudal divisions existed in Lithuania. He gave the magnates some credit for centralizing the Lithuanian state. Much attention is given to Lithuanian Polish relations. The Lithuanian desire for autonomy is made clear.

V. Picheta also has studied Lithuanian history. He was most interested in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially in social and economic developments. Picheta also dealt with Lithuanian Polish relations and tried to connect the issue of union with the rise of the class of petty gentry.30

I. Lappo has worked much and fruitfully in the field of Lithuanian history. Mostly, he studied Lithuanian history after the 1569 Union of Lublin.31 Lappo tried to show that even after the Union of Lublin, Lithuania retained her political autonomy. Lappo was not favorable to the policies of Jagiello. He held that Jagiello had sold Lithuania to Poland for a royal crown. He emphasized the activities of
Vytautas.

German bourgeois historiography has contributed much less to the study of Lithuanian history. In the first place, German historians studied the history of the order in Eastern Europe and the relations of the order with Lithuania, and in connection with this, Lithuanian
Polish relations. Typical here (likewise among the German chroniclers) is the effort to justify the conquest of the lands of Prussians, Lithuanians, and other nations, and the establishment of German feudalists in the eastern Baltic. German historians tried to depict the order as the instrument of a "historical mission," as the propagator and representative of a superior culture, while the Baltic nations were treated as barbarians to whom only the Germans brought progress and civilization. This suited the
aggressive aims of the Prussian Junkers .and the German bourgeoisie. They regarded unfavorably the gathering of eastern strength against the aggression of the German feudalists and by the same token were opposed to the union of Lithuania with Poland.

Worth mentioning is a monograph by A. Kotzebue about the Lithuanian Grand Duke Švitrigaila, who fought against Poland and maintained good relations with the order.32 The work is based almost exclusively upon materials in the archives of the order, part of which has not as yet been published. J. Voigt has written a nine volume History of
Prussia.33In writing it, Voigt used the copious materials in the Koenigsberg archives. Even today, after the more important sources have been published, Voigt's work is used because in it the author in detail depicted the political history of the order and the relations between the order and its neighbors, Lithuania and Poland. He supplied much information from the archives. Part of this material has not yet been published in collections of sources and part of this has failed to survive. Voigt wrote about the efforts of Lithuanian rulers to maintain good relations with the order, as disagreements with the Polish magnates became sharper.

J. Caro, who has written a four volume History of Poland,34 has investigated Lithuanian relations with Poland. His work, done in the second half of the nineteenth century, was a serious and objective investigation,
employing only the factual materials supplied by historical sources. The work was translated into Polish and influenced subsequent Polish historiography. Caro was one of the first to examine critically the information supplied by Dlugosz about Polish relations with Lithuania. The author noted the Lithuanian struggle against Polish efforts to subjugate and annex Lithuania. Caro valued Vytautas' talents highly and considered him a leading personality of the Slavic world. He did not find in Vytautas' activities any internal tie binding him with Poland.

From among later works by German bourgeois historians, noteworthy is a monograph about Vytautas as a political leader by J. Pfitzner.35 Pfitzner was a professor of the German university of Prague. He glorified German expansion eastward. In his work, he tried to present a general view of the activities of Vytautas and of the period. If the Polish historian Kolankowski, who wrote at the same time, minimized Vytautas in favor of Jagiello, Pfitzner did the contrary, he exalted Vytautas as a political figure. According to Pfitzner, Vytautas considered that his major aim was the autonomy of Lithuania, which could be restored after the union with Poland had been repudiated. Because of the efforts of Vytautas, in a factual sense, Lithuania was not annexed to Poland. Vytautas became the real and direct ruler of Lithuania. But still, he continued the struggle to insure the complete independence of Lithuania and the abolition of the union. This is made clear by his plan to be crowned king. With the death of Vytautas, Lithuania took the first steps towards dissolution.

H. Jablonowski's Western Russia Between Vilnius and Moscotu36 appeared after the war. It is devoted to a description of Russian lands within the boundaries of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and to an explanation of their political tendencies. The author is well versed in the literature. He tries to emphasize the differences
between the Russian lands within the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania and other Russian lands. The author touches upon, among other things, the Lithuanian Polish unions, and the struggle of Žygimantas and Švitrigaila.

The oldest known writings on Lithuanian history are the chronicles which were begun under Vytautas and are connected with his political activities.37 The oldest chronicle glorified Vytautas, his establishing himself on the Lithuanian throne and his government. It appeared as a reply to the efforts of Polish feudalists, after the union, to incorporate Lithuania into Poland. Later, this chronicle was reedited and expanded.

The most inclusive edition of the Lithuanian chronicle is known as the Bychovc chronicle. It was written in the middle of the sixteenth century, but only a seventeenth century copy has survived. After the first world war, doubts were raised about the authenticity of the Bychovc chronicle. It was claimed to be a forgery by the nineteenth century historian T. Narbutas who published it. However, nowdays38 it is held that the Bychovc chronicle is authentic (Narbutas received it from the landowner A. Bychovc in 1834). The author or authors of the chronicle are unknown. There are inaccuracies in chronology and in detail, but on the whole, the chronicle gives a great deal of valuable information, especially about the later period. The aim of the Bychovc chronicle is clear, to strengthen Lithuania in her struggle for political autonomy against Polish efforts to destroy it. It reflects the political goals of the magnates of the period, who were opposed to close ties with Poland. It tries to augment the status of the rulers and magnates of feudal Lithuania by attributing to them a Roman origin. The chronicle
does not recognize any dependence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania upon Poland.

The Lithuanian chronicles influenced later Lithuanian historiography. Maciej Stryjkowski (1547 -1586) is a well-known Lithuanian historian and chronicler of the second half of the sixteenth century. He was a Pole, of Masurian petty noble origin, but ha lived and wrote in Lithuania. From 1578, Stryjkowski was under the patronage of Merkelis Giedraitis, the bishop of Žemaitija. After his appointment as canon of the chapter of the diocese of Žemaitija, he lived in Varniai. Here, making use of the chronicle of Dlugosz and Lithuanian and Russian chronicles, Stryjkowski composed in Polish his Chronicle of the Poles, Lithuanians, Samogitians, and of all
Russia.39He had learned some Lithuanian and in his chronicle introduced some Lithuanian words and one conversation in Lithuanian. The chronicle of Stryjkowski can be considered the first history of Lithuania by a named author (the author himself used the short title The Lithuanian Chronicle), written in Polish and printed. The chronicle is written in a spirit favorable to Lithuania. Stryjkowski did not share the views of Dlugosz about Lithuania, and presented his topic like the writers of the Lithuanian chronicles. His chronicle reveals how Lithuanian feudal society after the Union of Lublin viewed historical events and persons while it continued to further their country's autonomy.

In the seventeenth century, Albertas Kojalavičius (Koialowicz) (1609-1677), a Lithuanian Jesuit from a wealthy landowning family in the Kaunas area, composed his History of Lithuania in Latin.40 On the whole,
Kojalavičius' history is a translation into Latin of the chronicle of Stryjkowski, except that the history of Lithuania is presented separately from that of the other nations. Kojalavičius' work is influenced by pro-Polish, unionist views. He expressed the standpoint of the Lithuanian feudalists, among whom denationalization had begun, and that of the Catholic church.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Lithuanian feudal and bourgeois historiography developed under unfavorable conditions, retarded by the supremacy of the Polish landowners and the Czarist oppression. We may consider Teodoras Narbutas (1784 - 1864) to be the originator of Lithuanian historiography of modern times. He wrote the first history of Lithuania separated from that of Poland, called The History of the Lithuanian Nation. This is a massive work in nine volumes published in Vilnius in 1835 - 1841, in Polish.41 The main achievement of Narbutas is to have set apart the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as an autonomous discipline. In his view, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was an independent state, with an autonomous development, which was destroyed by union with Poland in 1569. Although Narbutas knew Lithuanian, he wrote his history in Polish, the language then popular among the Lithuanian gentry. In 1847, Narbutas published a summary of his work titled A Short History of the Lithuanian Nation,42which made his work more widely accessible. In his works Narbutas made use of many and varied sources. His scholarly achievements have not as yet been given their due, although he played an important role in the development of Lithuanian historiography and culture.

Narbutas was a representative of feudal historiography. For him, the heart of the historical process was the development of states and changes in the organization of government, the activities of kings and magnates. Influenced by romanticism, the author praised everything Lithuanian and was not sufficiently critical, a trait characteristic of many at the time. The history of Narbutas is permeated with anti-union attitudes. For the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, union with Poland had a negative significance. Lithuania could have remained independent permanently, if she had not joined Poland, a foreign nation where endless chaos reigned. He believed that through the Union of Lublin Lithuania lost her independence and that is was the result of force on the part of the Polish petty gentry. Narbutas ended his treatment of Lithuanian history with the death of the last Lithuanian ruler, Sigismund Augustus. In ending his history, with pain in his heart, Narbutas wrote "I break my pen upon his grave." The events which followed Sigismund's death should be allocated to the history of Poland.

While Narbutas was writing his many volumed history of Lithuania, Simanas Daukantas (1793 -1864) also became interested in the past of his nation. He was educated by Lelewel, Danilevsky, Onacewicz, historians at the Vilnius university. He had great respect for the work of Narbutas. Daukantas, of peasant origin, from Žemaitija, was the first to write a history of Lithuania in Lithuanian. He wrote his first book, Deeds of the Ancient Lithuanians and Samogitians, while yet a student, in 1822. While this work was not printed at the time, it was copied and read. It was printed for the first time in 1929 in Kaunas.43 This was the first Lithuanian history written in Lithuanian. It covered events up to the death of Vytautas. In 1838 he wrote his Samogitian History which was published in America in two volumes in 1893-1897, under the title of History of Lithuania.44It covered the
history of Lithuania up to the Union of Lublin which, according to Daukantas, ended the political independence of Lithuania. The third work, The Character of the
Ancient Lithuanians, Hill-dwellers and Samogitians45appeared in 1845 under the pen name J. Laukys, while Daukantas was still alive. In this work, he portrayed the material and spiritual condition, the social system and character of the ancient Lithuanians. Daukantas carefully compiled sources for his work. At every step around himself, he saw the feudal yoke and the absence of political rights. As an enlightener and romantic, he idealized the patriarchal past of
Lithuania.46 Union with Poland and the introduction of Christianity ruined Lithuanian mores. Free tillers of the soil became serfs. Daukantas was scandalized by the feudal nobility, their polonization and their indifference to the needs of the nation. He believed that they in their search for personal gain betray the interests of their homeland and nation. Their union with Poland destroyed the Lithuanian state. The Union of Lublin with Poland ended the independence of Lithuania.

The Lithuanian nationalistic movement made use of this Lithuanian historiography (the works of Narbutas and Daukantas) in order to show the self-sufficiency of their nation and its honorable past. These traditions were continued in the work of J. Basanavičius.

In the bourgeois Lithuanian state, especially after the establishment of the university in Kaunas, conditions were more favorable for the development of Lithuanian bourgeois historiography. The political and scholarly interests of the time demanded a special portrayal of Lithuania's past. On the basis of a bourgeois-idealistic
methodology, several works of a general nature on the history of Lithuania were published, as well as a number of monographs on various questions, in particular concerning the Lithuanian grand dukes, and articles of various lengths in historical and other journals. Since they did not recognize historical determinism and served the interests of the ruling class, the scholarship of bourgeois historians could not yield a truly correct picture of the history of the Lithuanian state and nation. Besides, history was not investigated systematically and according to plan. Most of the works were occasional and commemorative, or were written at the initiative of their authors. Those works are very uneven in their scholarly worth. At first, historical work was done by persons who had been educated in Czarist institutions of higher education, later on, graduates in history from the Kaunas university joined in. During the years of bourgeois rule in Lithuania, attention was paid mostly to political history and there was little interest in social and economic questions. Bourgeois historiography usually considered the Lithuanian state to be the product of the actions of princes and gave the decisive role to foreign affairs. The princes and feudalists of the ancient Lithuanian state were idealized, and especially their policy of expanding the territory of Lithuania from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The class struggle was covered up, the role of the people in history was ignored, the great danger to Lithuania's existence which the cross bearers posed was not made clear. Neither was it shown how the cross bearers affected relations with Poland. Lithuania's union with Poland, on the whole, was regarded unfavorably. In the treatment of Lithuanian Polish relations, the legal and political analysis of the acts of union was most emphasized. There was a great effort to maximize the role of the Catholic church.

We will mention several of the more typical general works of the bourgeois period in Lithuania and those which treat fifteenth century Lithuania and her relations with Poland. Of the general works, worthy of
mention is the History of Lithuania 47written by several historians, mostly of the younger generation. The chapters on Lithuania's relations with Poland were written by Z.
Ivinskis and A. Šapoka. Of those who wrote especially upon Lithuanian Polish relations, noteworthy are two historians from Vilnius,, D. Alseika and A. Vismantas.48Ig. Jonynas also dealt with these questions in his articles.49On the occasions of the jubilees of Vytautas and Jagiello, two books were published on the unions between Poland and Lithuania during that period. In 1930, on the 500th anniversary of the death of Vytautas, a collectively authored work, Vytautas Didysis,50was published; some years later, on the same anniversary of Jagiello, another collectively authored work, Jogaila,51was published. Both were collections of articles by historians who had matured in bourgeois Lithuania. If in the first work, Vytautas alone is idealized and held up as the symbol of the struggle with Poland, while Jagiello is not spared, in the second work, Jagiello's person and activities are judged more favorably than had been usually done up to then. In general, this work is of greater scholarly worth. J. Matusas wrote a monograph about Švitrigaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, who is depicted as the only fighter for Lithuania's independence at the time.52A. Šapoka in his work about Lithuania and Poland after the Union of Lublin analyzed the legal and governmental relations between Lithuania and Poland.53

Soviet historical science, guided by Marxist methodology, undertook to investigate anew and from its very foundations the past of the Lithuanian nation and state. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the eras of capitalism and socialism, had to be studied in the first place. However, the feudal era was not forgotten. Soviet historiography had to pay a great deal of attention to social and economic relations, to the class struggle, and the condition and role of the masses. It had to elucidate the struggle of the Lithuanian nation against the order of cross bearers and the Western European feudalists who supported it and to portray truly the relations between the Lithuanian nation and the Russian and other Eastern European nations. Placing itself in opposition to the idealization of princes and holding that the people are the basic creators of history, Soviet historical science also recognizes a certain role for individual actors in history, for those who through their acts, in essence coinciding with the interests of the people, objectively played a progressive role in Lithuanian history, for example, by leading the Lithuanian nation in its struggle for freedom and independence.

Among the works of Soviet historical science, in the first place we must mention the first volume of the History of the Lithuanian SSR,54 produced by a group of historians. It elucidates the major issues of the history of feudal Lithuania. The editor-in-chief, academician Prof. J. Žiugžda wrote the chapters on Lithuania's relations with her neighbors, with Poland among them. In the same
work, J. Jurginis, doctor of historical science, analyzed the economic and social development of the feudal system. Furthermore, Lithuanian relations with Poland are mentioned in general histories of the Ukraine, and in the history of Poland written by Soviet historians.55

Very important is the study of individual historical periods and problems in monographs. There are none closely related with our topic. Of the available monographs, in the first place we must mention the very important work by V. Pashuto, The Formation of the Lithuanian State.56
In it, he presents an extensive analysis of early sources and surveys the investigations of the Lithuania of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The problem of the origins of the Lithuanian state is solved in connection with the genesis of the feudal mode of production. The formation of the Lithuanian state was determined by changes in the economic and social development of the country, also by changes in the international situation. This work does not deal with Lithuania's union with Poland which took place at the end of the fourteenth century.

Noteworthy is the monograph by K. Bazilevich, The Foreign Relations of the Centralized Russian State. The Second Half of the Fifteenth Century.57The author used Russian and other sources. This work gives much attention to the relations between the Grand Duchy of Moscow and Lithuania in the fifteenth century. We should also mention L. Cherepnin's The Formation of a Centralized Russian State in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries.58Among other things, the author treats
Russian relations with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, especially when writing about the unification of Novgorod and Pskov with other Russian lands.

Not only up to the October revolution, but also later, V. Picheta has concerned himself with questions of Lithuanian history. He was interested in the social and economic questions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and in Lithuania's relations with Poland especially after the Union of Lublin. In his opinion, the Rzeczpospolita formed by the union was a federal state.59

The federative character of the Rzeczpospolita is also depicted by the
Byelorussian historian V. Druzhchyc.60I. Grekov, in his description of international relations in Eastern Europe in the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, also mentions Lithuania's relations with Poland, against the background of her relations with Moscow.61

Lithuania's relations with Poland are closely tied to Lithuania's policy in respect of the order. On this question, we can mention the work of P. Pakarklis about the political structure of the order; a collectively authored work about the Lithuanian war with the order, and a work by the present author about the struggle of Lithuanians for their western
lands.62

The relations between feudal Lithuania and Poland cannot but be dealt with by historians of the People's
Republic of Poland who, keeping in mind the achievements of the old historical scholarship and guided by the Marxist methodology, examine the views dominant in bourgeois historiography and in a new way elucidate the historical process. After the second world war, the people's Poland recovered western lands up to the Oder and in this way, for the first time since the act of Krewo, radically turned away from expansion eastward. Polish historians turned their attention to the liberated western lands. Less attention is given to Lithuanian Polish relations than in the period between the wars. The question of union has not yet been investigated in any special way.

Of the historical works in people's Poland, the first noteworthy one is the first volume of the History of Poland,63 by a group of authors. Here, Lithuanian Polish relations and Polish expansion eastwards are treated in a new light. The nationalistic conception of union is repudiated and the previous opinion about Lithuania's economic, social, and cultural primitiveness is denied. Poland's mission to bring western culture to the east is not emphasized. The Lithuanian Polish union was formed first of all because the order threatened both states and because the Lithuanian and Polish feudalists tried toexpand into Russian lands.

W. Kamieniecki published a work devoted to Lithuanian society in the fifteenth
century64 In this work, which was begun before the war and published shortly after, there still remain some old idealistic concepts about the origins of feudalism in Lithuania, the origin of the state, and so on. A feudal social order, he claimed, was formed in Lithuania only in the fifteenth century when Jagiello and Vytautas carried out a "revolutionary" program to reorganize Lithuania in imitation of the Polish pattern. Lithuanian boyars lacked political power to the end of fifteenth century and Lithuania was an absolute
monarchy. Kamieniecki's views were in their essence criticized by the noted specialist in the history of feudal Lithuania, H. Lowmianski.65 Taking this occasion to re-examine some of his own previous assertions about the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Lowmianski showed that Lithuanian society, developing in an evolutionary way, was divided into classes substantially before the union of Kre-wo in 1385. The union only hastened certain reforms needed by Lithuanian society. In another works, Lowmianski divided into periods and described in general terms the aggression of the order of
cross bearers against Lithuania in the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.66

S. Kuczynski devoted a weighty monograph to the great war against the cross bearers
and the battle of Tan-nenberg.67 However, it is not possible to agree with all of his assertions.68 In another of his works, about the policies of the first Jagiellonians,69 Kuczynski indicates that Jagiello and his dynasty intended to unify Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and that the strengths of the unified state be turned to the west, to the war with the order. There was, he alleges, no Polish aggression to the east in the fifteenth century. He only includes Russian and not Ukrainian lands in his conception of the east.

E. Maleczynska, before the war, wrote a work about Polish society in the first half of the fifteenth century from the standpoint of western problems.70 The work was destroyed during the war, but was later reconstructed. In analyzing certain Polish internal and external policies, the author gives much attention to dynastic issues and political groupings. The author points out the opposition of some Polish magnates and petty nobles to the plans of the group led by Olesnicki to incorporate Lithuania.

The noted student of the history of ancient Lithuania, St. Zajaczkowski, has published a survey of Polish historiography on Lithuanian Polish relations during the time of the Jagiellonians.71 J. Ochmanski also investigates questions of feudal Lithuanian history. He has written a complete history of Lithuania.72 M. Kosman has published a popular biography of the Lithuanian Grand
Duke Vytautas.73